Good Light Magazine Issue 01

I s s u e 0 1 - G o o d L i g h t ! M a g - T h e N e w W a y o f P o r t r a i t P h o t o g r a p h y

Issue 01 - Good Light! Mag - The New Way of Portrait Photograp Photography hy

Why Off Camera is Spot On BASICS. Interview with Ed Verosky

DIY: Bubblewrap Softening Filter Lens hood and bubblewrap: a match made in heaven

5for Questions Jacques Rattaz G o o d L i g h t M a g . c o m

Ultra-Soft Beauty Light with One Bare Speedlight Building a perfect light sphere in your closet

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© by Zelbel Ltd & Co.KG, all rights reserved reser ved

Published by

© by Zelbel Ltd & Co.KG, all rights reserved reser ved

Contents FEATURES Why Off Camera is Spot On Positioning Positioning your speedlight makes all the difference By OLEG STARKO

Basics. Interview with Ed Verosky By MICHAEL ZELBEL

DIY Bubblewrap Softening Filter Lens hood and bubblewrap: a match made in heaven By MICHAEL ZELBEL

5 Quesions for Jacques Rattaz Interview with a boudoir photography tutor By MICHAEL ZELBEL

Ultra-Soft Beauty Light with One Bare Speedlight Building a perfect light sphere in your closet By MICHAEL ZELBEL

Download Free Movie Poster Template One sure-re way to make your photography work stand out and aract aenon is to display it in a unique manner that demonstrates demonstrates clearly just how creave and inspired you are. It will be especially eecve if it’s the happy client or model that proudly does the displaying. To make the heroine of your most recent photo shoot even more delighted with the pictures you have created, you can go an extra mile and drop your best photo ph oto of her into this slick movie poster template. Next, ll it in with the model’s name, your name and your website address – and don’t forget to credit other people who helped in your photo shoot. As a nal step, save it as a JPG and either enclose it with the other pictures from the shoot or post it on the model’s Facebook page. Let the word of mouth do the rest – her friends will hardly resist the temptaon to “oooh” and “aaah” over this awesome-looking poster! To top it o, you could print it out in high resoluon and use it as an eye-catcher in your studio – it would double as an un usual piece of decoraon d ecoraon and an adversement for your skills! The template is available for instant i nstant download (in PSD format, to edit in Photoshop and compable soware) for the low, low, low cost of “nothing whatsoever” – all you need to do is sign up for our newsleer “Photography Talk”. It is chock-full of excel lent advice on photography. photography. No spam – we hate it as much as you do. No obligaons – you can unsubscribe with one click at any me. You want it, don’t you? Then click here to grab the template right now:

PhotographyTalk And may your new elegant movie poster make your models happy! Tip: you can make another, another, more light-hearted version of the template by simply inverng the background of the poster from black to white. It looks like a dream for wedding photos!

Oleg Starko

Why Off Camera is Spot On 5

By OLEG STARKO

Why Off Camera is Spot On Positioning your speedlight makes all the difference

In beauty photography, lighting up your model for a perfect shot is a lot like dealing with a charging bull... meaning – you don’t want to do this head on. In bullghting, you would end up impaled on the horns of an angry bovine; in beauty photography, you would produce a at, uninteresting and cheap-looking image. Even if you don’t want to make an impression of ridiculously high production values (though why wouldn’t you?), a tasteful photo is, in many ways, all about depth – visual, meaningful or sensual. And somehow a bland, boring picture with chiseled shadows created with a frontal ash just fails to convey all of the above.


The lesson here is simple and straightforward – unhook that ash from your camera and mount it on a lightstand somewhere more appropriate: to the left, right or above your point of view. A minor modication like this can make a world of difference in the resulting photos. Using a white shoot-through umbrella and a lightstand is more than enough to make your images considerably more sophisticated. You will have more creative control in terms of positioning your light sources and adjusting the intensity of the ash. You might ask, “Just how many creative options are we talking here?” Well, it

only depends on your imagination! Let me demonstrate just a few ways of enhancing your photographs with an “off ash”. As I’ve already said, you will need the following: Essential - a lightstand; - a mounted camera ash; - a shoot-through umbrella (to soften the light from the ash); - a sprinkle of imagination.

A ash to the face is boring and unattering; especially due to hard shadows under the nose and the chin.


Optional - a reector (if you want to minimize shadows).

Now let’s mess around with our “high-tech” equipment and see what happens!

Option 0. Bland and Boring 101

dark outline to the right of the model, because the ash went off to the left of the lens. In short, it’s still a far cry from what a beauty photo should be. Instead of rage-quitting on this whole shooting business and going out for a beer or two, we should ask ourselves – what can we do to make our next image look better?

Let’s say you want to do some portrait photography. You have a decent 50 mm prime lens, a good speedlight mounted on your camera – nothing stands between you and all of those awesome pictures! So you take a quick shot and see what happens. The results are strangely underwhelming, aren’t they? Hard shadows under the model’s nose and chin are off-putting, and the ash from the speedlight attens everything out like a steamroller. Shooting like this is a slacker’s way out, we say! Moving on!

Option 1. From the Left Still undiscouraged, we recall that vertical portraits are a staple format in the majority of fashion magazines, where pretty ladies and tasteful clothing are abundant, and harsh shadows are virtually unheard of. “Eureka,” we say, and turn the camera 90 degrees – indeed, this might solve things! This time the end result is somewhat ambivalent, which means that there’s good news and bad news. The good news – we no longer have to deal with shadows under the chin and the nose. The bad news – there’s a hideous

A 90-degree turn of the camera: the light now comes from the left of the lens. Marginally better, but still not what we want.


Option 2. Soft Light from Above Time to get serious: let’s grab that umbrella and combine it with the ash, McGuyver-style! We will get an awesome yet practical beauty photography device that is dirt-cheap and very effective. Once we pimp our ash in this way, it will stop creating such chiseled shadows.

But before we do that, the rst priority should be to break up the odd couple of the DSLR and the speedlight by placing the latter on the lightstand and positioning it approximately 30 inches above the camera. This will enable us to add a shoot-through umbrella to the combo and make the lighting angle more attering and pleasant to the eye.

we learned that introducing a couple of slight changes to the lighting setup and the model’s position makes for much cooler photos! You can easily shoot pictures that are on par with some fashion photography images out there! Afterwards, all you need is a little post-production, and your photographs wouldn’t look out of place in a magazine! To conclude our little inquiry in off camera ashes – and to provide you with some metaphorical icing on the cake – We want to show you another cool trick that will help you out on a gloomy day outside.

These are very simple and subtle modications, but believe us when we say that they make a world of difference compared to the previous pictures! Everything works like a charm – the light is soft and soothing now, and we are slowly but surely approaching a fashion photography standard! Still, we don’t reall ylike the way the model’s shadow looks “stuck” to the wall. Maybe if she stepped forward just a little, then the shade would subside and become less distracting? Indeed, it would! We thought as much.

So, let’s summarize: our starting point was a mediocre and cheap-looking technique for shooting portraits with a standard on-camera ash; however,

Mounting the ash on a lightstand and adding a shoot-through umbrella cures hard shadows. However, they are still too visible.

Oftentimes, if a model takes just a couple of steps forward, background shadows become a non-issue.


Why Off is Spot It’s a gloomy dayCamera outside! The On ash is 3 feet behind the model, 10 mimicking intense sunlight.


Option 3. Who Needs Sun Anyway? When taking pictures outside, you needn’t be at the mercy of unreliable weather. If you planned on-location shoot is jeopardized by an overcast sky, you can easily use your ash to imitate direct sunlight. That’s right, you can successfully fake the Sun! All you need to do is simply place the speedlight 3 feet behind the model, so it would emit the light right into the lens.

It’s denitely not the most subtle trick in the book, but it will do when you require a bright outdoor shot. Whatever the weather, you don’t have to walk away tfrom your next on-location shoot empty-handed! As much as you are tempted sometimes to mount your ash on the camera and never give it a second thought during the shoot, it is much more benecial to experiment with positioning your light source at different angles, distances and heights from the model.

Just because the ash is your only means of creating a lighting setup doesn’t mean you can go down the path of least resistance and restrain your creativity. We hope I’ve managed to prove as much to you today!

Model: Fredau Hoekstra Pictures in this article are 100% unretouched – just to give you a clear idea of how big a difference you can make with simple manipulations like the ones described in the article.

Basics 13

Basics. Interview with Ed Verosky By MICHAEL ZELBEL

Especially for the rst issue of Good Light! magazine I had the privilege to interview Ed Verosky, professional New York City-based photographer and author of best selling photography eBooks such as “100% Reliable Flash Photography” and “Taking you Portraiture to the Next Level”, host of the podcast “About Photography” and a great tutor and inspiration to myself. He recently published a brand new eBook titled “DSLR - The Basics”, so I made “Basics” a topic of this interview. [MZ] Michael Zelbel

[EV] Ed Verosky [MZ] Ed , please let me start off with a “job interview” type of question. How well do you know the tbasics of the DSLR cameras you are using? [EV] That’s an interesting question, because you’d think my answer would be that I know all of the functions and features of my DSLR intimately. The truth is that I’m very familiar with the controls and settings I use every day, but not very familiar with those I don’t For ex ample, I shoot primarily in Manual mode-both camera and ash--when shooting in-

“...when you learn to use the different features of your camera you are able to express yourself in new ways... “

Basics 14

doors. Outdoors, I’m usually shooting in Aperture Priority mode. Other photographers might use Shutter Priority or the Auto or Program modes more frequently. So, we all know what we know, but I think it’s important to get familiar with the modes and settings we don’t often use. By doing so, we can learn to shoot in different ways, and we can have intelligent discussions about photography with other photographers. Writing this book forced me to relearn a lot of the basics and I hope it helps people like me and beginners alike to really get to know their cameras. [MZ] Would you suggest that exploring the different options of your camera might foster your creativity?

[EV] Yes, because when you learn to use the different features of your camera you are able to express yourself in new ways. Just like you wouldn’t want to be a writer with a limited vocabulary, you don’t want to be a photographer with a limited knowledge of your camera. One of the best examples of this is learning what your basic exposure settings are and how to manipulate them. Once you are able to do that, you can master your camera. There are, of course, different ways to control exposure, but you need to know the basics, and you need to learn how to best use your camera controls. Another good example is using ash; not just in a point-and-shoot way, but in a way that allows you to control the exposure of your subject and their background independently of each other. Learning

all of these basics will open up new creative options for you. [MZ] I too believe, that knowing the technical options fuels my creativity. However, what happened to me lately at a photography convention was, that someone walked up to me and told me that my videos might be entertaining, but that he would not need all this technical stuff. It would just get in the way of his creativity. He said that he would rather setup a perfect scene in reality and then captures the thing with his camera on full auto in order to record an exact image of the scene he created. I mean, I have an opinion about this approach. But what would you say to this photographer?

[EV] Full Auto mode should not be confused with the idea of capturing a scene faithfully. Full Auto records a scene based on a guess the camera makes for you concerning exposure. It does not allow the photographer to make any creative choices concerning depth of eld (how much of the scene is in focus, or out of focus), shutter speed (how much movement you’re expressing in the scene), or ash and other lighting issues. Why wouldn’t you want to be able to control those things yourself? I think Full Auto gets in the way of creativity. The desire to be creative isn’t a good excuse for not learning how to use your tools. As a matter of fact, the goal of any artist is to learn the fundamentals and become so well versed with their tools that they can use them without much thought.

Basics 15

Creativity ows when you master the technical, not when the technical eludes you. [MZ] I couldn’t agree more. Photographers, learn your basics, take full control and let your creativity ow! Ed, please tell us a secret. Where do you get inspiration? How do you usually fuel up your creative gas tank, so to speak? [EV] First, I want to say that it’s okay if you’re not constantly being inventive. You’ll do something new on occasion and you can call that “art.” You’ll then repeat some of what you’ve learned by making art, and you can call that “craft.” Photographers are not always supposed to be creative geniuses; they’re also often expected to produce repeatable work. They get paid to know what they’re doing. This is why knowing your craft is so important; you are responsible for knowing how to use your tools. You should know how and why an image can be created in a certain way using your camera settings and lighting. You should be able to produce even when conditions aren’t perfect. So, know what you’re doing, then be open to inspiration.

As for the secret to my creativity and inspiration, I simply try to be open to the world around me. Whatever or whomever has inuenced me, as a person, up to this point is going to determine why I choose to photograph something in a certain way. The inspiration is just the trigger. If a person or scene inspires me, it means they’ve reminded me of something, probably

on a subconscious level, that I want to express. Your life is the creative gas tank. Your openness to new people, places, and things is your inspiration. [MZ] “Your life is the creative gas tank” - that’s a good one. I also love “You repeat what you’ve learned by making art, and you can call that craft.” So your new book “DSLR - The Basics” is all about taking control of your camera and get into the craft. I have read it and for me it is excellent. It’s modern, it’s all about digital and that’s exactly what we photographers need nowadays. Nevertheless, let me ask you a question about your book for those of our readers who did not yet have the chance to look at it. When they read the book and when they take it to heart, really go through the review questions at the end of each chapter, and when they start taking control of all the described settings and options, how far does it take them in terms of shooting technically excellent images? Would they be able to shoot at a professional “Ed Verosky” level already, or would that be more like a beginning photographer who nished their rst term at photography school or anything? What do you think? [EV] Understanding these concepts is necessary to becoming a skilled photographer. You can’t skip this stuff; you need to know it. Once you know what you’re doing, you’ll be able to move forward on a solid foundation. And yes, you’ll be able to make technically good images. The next step will be to learn some advanced lighting techniques, like working with portraiture and ash photography. As

Basics 16

you progress, you’ll learn and develop new skills and techniques along the way toward excellence. But if you miss some of the basic key points about photography, you’ll nd yourself stuck and frustrated along the way. I wrote DSLR: The Basics so you can start fresh, or ll in the gaps, when it comes to your understanding of the most important concepts in working with a camera and exposure. From there, your potential with camera is almost limitless. [MZ] Excellent. Thank you very much, Ed.

Ed Verosky is a professional photographer based in New York City. He loves to make pictures and he loves to teach people what he knows about photography. He is the author of several eBooks on the subject and also write occasionally for other photography blogs.

Recommended Reading DSLR-The Basics, Ed Verosky

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DIY Bubblewrap Softening Filter 18

By MICHAEL ZELBEL

DIY Bubblewrap Softening Filter Lens hood and bubblewrap: a match made in heaven

Gradually, as you shoot more and more various images and tap into different creative techniques, you will end up with a formidable battery of lens lters for every purpose imaginable: polarizers, warming/cooling lters, neutral density lters and many others. This is to be expected, because, let’s face it, lters are cool! They can help you put a new spin on an otherwise unremarkable photo – and the best part is, you don’t even have to do anything! All you need to do is install it and then start taking pictures. For artists who don’t enjoy post-production or simply want to add a stroke of novelty to an image this is a godsend and a must-have.

But you know what’s even better? Instead of buying a manufactured lens lter,


The components you need for making a bubblewrap lter. As you can see, the end result boasts a very uneven hole in the middle.

why not make one yourself? Now, don’t fret – We’re not going to force you to blow glass and then coat it in various substances. You know, it would probably be hilarious for all of us, but we can only teach you the things we know and have tried ourselves. We want to show you how to make a super-simple lter out of bubblewrap that you can put on the lens hood of your camera and use in beauty photography shoots. Everyone has a bit of bubblewrap left over – and even if you enjoy popping it (a pretty soothing activity, isn’t it?), it will still make a perfectly decent lter! One. Place a piece of bubblewrap over and around the lens hood. Two. Fix it in place with a rubber band. Three. Cut an odd-shaped hole in the middle of the wrap. The magnitude of “oddness” is up to you – the hole should be fairly large though. It’s pretty much impossible to mess up, so after step three you should end up with a perfectly usable

bubblewrap lter. Now it’s time for that awkward moment when you look in bewilderment at the masterpiece of your making and ask, “What do I need it for again?” Let’s see how this nifty little lter can add to your arsenal of photography techniques and make your pool of shooting ideas that much deeper! With a bubblewrap lter, you can give those pictures a softer, more romantic touch, which have a dark background. Transparent bubblewrap acts as a really blurry foreground, mimicking the way sunbeams often bounce off the glass. In fact, those blurry dots you see are indeed sunbeams, caught by the wrap and focused into the lens. That’s also the reason why this lter needs a dark background to be effective: adding a few more light beams into an already very bright picuture would make not so much of a difference. “But what can a few faint beads of light add to my pictures?” you might

The same set with the bubblewrap lter applied. It adds a very blurry foreground, which lends a somewhat mysterious feel to the picture. Because it’s nothing but stray light caught in the bubblewrap, it works best with a dark background like this one.

but at the same time feel reluctant to do. That’s when an innocent trick of light comes into play.

A super simple artistic set without the bubblewrap lter. It is taken with a 50mm prime lens at f/5.6, like all photos in this article.

ask. Sometimes an image benets from a blurry foreground – for instance, if there is a lot of empty space around your model that you would like to ll,

Or you may nd yourself struggling to shoot a tender scene, a display of softness and affection, and all required is a subtle touch... of something you don’t have. Seriously, there is nothing remotely romantic or soft lying around on set, a model or models can’t gure out exactly what you want, and the background and lighting alone won’t cut it. In this situation, using a bubblewrap lter can be a perfectly valid way to add to the picture’s mood.


This romantic photo could use something to make it more interesting. Let’s apply the bubblewrap lter and see what happens.

As with any other technique that is meant to enhance photos, don’t overdo it. A lter should be used as a nishing stroke, a cherry on top of a solid “lighting + composition” combo, just to make things more interesting. Occasionally it can be used to salvage otherwise unimpressive images... but not very often. Also, it goes without saying that a bubblewrap lter is, in a way, a lighting effect – so please don’t pile it on a photo that already features a distinctive and imposing lighting pattern. It will look out of place in it. Oleg Starko

In this set, using the bubblewrap lter adds much-needed softness to the edges of the image, making it more subtle by driving the viewer’s attention away from unnecessary details and putting primary focus on the couple’s facial expressions and poses. Pictures in this article are 100% unretouched – just to give you a clear idea of how big a difference you can make with simple manipulations like the ones described in the article. For more tips & tricks sign up for our free newsletter: Photography Talk

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5 Questions 23

5 Quesions for Jacques Rattaz Interview with a boudoir photography tutor By MICHAEL ZELBEL

This is going to be a regular section of our magazine. Here we are going to feature upcoming photographers who caught the attention of our Good Light team and who sparked our interest. It’s about people that we want to know more about. The 5 questions of this issue take us to lovely Switzerland. Living in Geneva, Jacques Rattaz is working as a fashion photographer and photography tutor at ETAP Sàrl Photography Institute. We stumbled upon his website GlamBoudoir.ch. There we learned that he is also shooting boudoir and artistic nudes at a commercial level.

5 Questions 24

We wanted to know more.

[GL] Good Light Magazine [JR] Jacques Rattaz [GL] How did you come to photography? How did you learn the techniques?

[JR] When I was 13 years old, already 37 years ago, my father gave me its Canon F1 (that I always own). At the same time, I had the opportunity to follow, at school, a laboratory course. All the necessary things were put together to create a passion! For the technical point of view... I mainly learnt by myself, reading monthly magazines, buying

“...inspiration is coming from people, so I feel my artis tic soul coming out mainly in fashion, portrait, boudoir, nude, concert and crowded events photography...” some books and practicing a lot, trying to break the rules, coming back ( when my friends and my parents were not appreciating my “new art”). I also bought a lot of photographer’s books and, for each photograph, I always tried to express what I liked or disliked, even for the pictures of my favorite photographs (Jean-Loup Sieff, Steve Mc Curry, Helmut Newton are the main one). [GL] Why are you into boudoir photography? What brought you there? [JR] I’m passionate about Human relationship and light... This means that naturally I prefer people photography and I am more and more attracted by studio lighting. I thing that boudoir and nude photography are the logical light, if any available, and the effect I’m looking for.

5 Questions 25

My favorite modier is an octabox 150cm. It offers a lot of possibilities... just try it and play with the center, the edges, with or without grid, with or without diffuser, from various angles or distances... If you have one strobe and you have the money to buy only one softbox, this is the one. [GL] What do you typically do in postproduction? How much time do you spend on it?

[JR] Once I’m back at home after one full Saturday of shooting... I rst kiss my wife... Then I load my pictures in Lightroom. The next step is the editing. I generally choose one or two pictures by series, if the photographs were done without link together. If they tell a story, of course the story must be understandable and the selection is done accordingly. The retouching process depends on the precision and quality of the technical setup, the quality of the skin and the wish of the customer. sometimes I use only Lightroom and its local adjustments tools. In this case I need two to three minutes by picture. But mainly I need to launch Photoshop with the following steps : 1) skin cleaning with the “Spot Healing Brush” or the “Patch” tools 2) eye, mouth, jewelry, tissues sharpening with the “unsharp mask” lter 3) eyes lightening with a layer in “Screen mode” and a mask 4) use of the plug-in “Portraiture” to smoothen the skin 5) Use of the plug-in “Color Efex Pro 4” with the “Pro Contrast” lter sometimes mixed with other 6) Local contrast adjustments with a “Soft Light lled with 50% gray” layer painted with “Burn” and “Dodge” tools

5 Questions 26

5 Questions 27

7) if needed “Silver Efex Pro 2” plug-in to convert in Black & White. This process take around 5 to 20 minutes by picture depending, as already said, mainly on the skin retouching needs and the quality of the light at the shooting time. Never forget : “you will never get a top pictures from a bad shot!” and on top of that, to try to save your bad shot will cost you a lot of time... and money... [GL] You are living and working in lovely Switzerland. How come we don’t see nature and mountains in your photos? For more information about Jacques Rattaz and his work visit:

[JR] As said before, I like the contact with people... I don’t easily nd inspiration in front of a landscape... As in front of an apple, two lemons and some nuts on a wooden table... I have difculties to exchange opinions with them... Of course I have sometimes to do these kind of pictures in order to illustrate our courses or to demonstrate to our students... But I think that each one has its specialties depending on its way of living, education, experiments. For me inspiration is coming from people, so I feel my artistic soul coming out mainly in fashion, portrait, boudoir, nude, concert and crowded events photography... But I don’t like to be a wedding photographer... Strange... [GL] Thank you very much, Mr. Rattaz.

Ultra-Soft Beauty Light with One Bare Speedlight 29

By MICHAEL ZELBEL

Ultra-Soft Beauty Light with One Bare Speedlight Building a perfect light sphere in your closet

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothingmore to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. Antoine de Saint-Exupery Although many shooting techniques in beauty photography may look really impressive and difcult to apply, most of them are much easier than people doing them would have you believe. High-key lighting is one such technique.


When you see a picture that features a model bathed in a torrent of soft, charming light, a part of your mind simply refuses to admit that this heavenly display has, in fact, been shot inside a small room, a basement studio, a white tent in someone’s backyard – even a storage room or a garage, for that matter! How do we know? Having done quite a number of high-key photos, we never actually had to visit the pearly gates or a sterile white room in the Matrix for this – it’s always been as Spartan as possible. As long as you have any interior space with reasonable reective properties (i.e. white walls and ceiling), you can make it look all shiny and ethereal – just like we did.

This is the lighting diagram for my original setup.

That’s why many photographers love high-key lighting so much – it spares them unattering backgrounds, ugly shadows and “glitchy” colors. It’s a nifty technique to learn, and it doesn’t take all that much in terms of equipment or skill. If you want to learn how to shoot in high-key, this is what you will need: a reasonably white room – any interior with white walls and ceiling, a tent or even a DIY shelter made of white sheets will serve; a lightstand; a speedlight; a quality lens – when in doubt, go for a 50 mm prime lens, but it would be better to have a fast telezoom or a superzoom lens for this.


Now, the last time we showed this kid of lighting setup in a video on our blog SmokingStrobes.com, we used no less than three ashes to light up the scene! Two were directed at the background (set for 1/4 of their power), while the remaining one was placed slightly behind me to lend a little bit of light to the foreground – at 1/16 of full capacity. If you want to know how that previous shoot unraveled, you can watch the video directly from the blog.

It’s hard to imagine that this was shot in a hideously small room with barely any space for the model and the speedlights.

As nice as the pictures from this shoot looked, they led me to think that three ashes would, in most cases, be an overkill for a high-key setup. For my second experiment, I only used one.

Taken from my previous shoot with the model Coco. Abundant lighting, “burned out” white background, barely any shadows – those are the hallmarks of high-key photos.


Time has passed, things have changed and now we realize that the same results could have been achieved with only one speedlight at our disposal. Back then, we thought that the simplest and most effective solution to equalize out the distribution of light in the room was to add more ashes. In hindsight, this was a poorly thought-out strategy: the lighting seemed slightly aggressive, and highlights, although soft, were very, very bright indeed.

Pale-skinned models like Fredau here will look most beautiful in the soft light of one carefully placed ash, rather than in a shining surge from three speedlights.


What we should have done was to re-position the one speedlight that we had: mount it on a lightstand, get it further away from the background and aim it properly. This would have taken care of our “uneven lighting problem” by ensuring that every part of the room reected the light in equal measure. That way, not only was high-key lighting achieved with a lot less equipment, but the hightlights were soft instead of intense, and the background was glowing and shining with warmth instead of “burned out”.

as possible, you will denitely nd this information useful. Let’s get to it, shall we?

A solitary speedlight will do the trick just as well as three of them have – in some ways, even better!

Now that this idea’s been tested and proved to work ne, we would like to share it with all of you. If for some reason you don’t own three ashes, have never taken high-key shots before or prefer work with as little gear

This is what my new, simpler and cleaner setup looks like.

When shooting high-key pictures, try to make your images “same but differ ent” by changing up small details like clothing, the model’s facial expression, marginal changes in her pose etc.

During my shoot with the model Jennifer Hill I tried to get by with a single speedlight. The results were quite satisfying.

When the background details are ushed out, the viewers will focus on your model, so make sure she looks her best.

With a single-speedlight setup, we kill two birds with one stone – we rein in the highlights that used to be a little too intense, and we also de-clutter our set from extra gear.

High-key lighting is great for maternity photos. Soft light emphasizes how charming Modelina looks here.

Who says a mom can’t be cool and upbeat? We and Modelina beg to differ. High-key lighting can make for a very playful mood.


between the upper section of the wall and the ceiling. Cover any of the darker objects of interior with – you guessed it – white pieces of cloth. Now position your model, aim the camera and shoot some posh photos! See, didn’t we tell you it was easier than it looked? Also, maybe it’s just us, but this new one-light setup seems to produce less aggressive lighting, which can be very advantageous if your model has a pale complexion. As you can see, shooting high-key images with one speedlight is a valid and extremely useful technique. Now, to get better results and further rene your photographic skill of taking high-key shots, you may want to heed some additional advice: The light is so soft and omnipresent that we didn’t need any additional reectors or ll ashes for this scene. Normally, a couple would cast shadows on each other. High-key lighting took care of this for us, while at the same time providing the necessary mood.

When shooting in high-key, our goal is to light up the model from all directions, “burning out” the background and leaving as little shadow as possible, but at the same time keeping the light soft, albeit quite bright. White surfaces will act as reectors, whereas the speedlight is going to be our main lighting source.

Mount the ash on a lightstand and set it for 50% power; place it behind the model so the speedlight would face the white background somewhere

- The amount of light captured by your camera will vary depending on the speedlight settings and the reective properties of the model’s surroundings. If you don’t feel like there is enough light for a decent high-key image, ramp up the intensity of the ash – or bring in a reector to the side that is insufciently lit. - Chances are that your white room is going to be quite tight for two people – so be a gentleman and zoom in with your lens instead of trying to cram yourself in there. - By their very nature, high-key photos tend to look generic; to avoid this, emphasize variety in the model’s poses, lingerie (or lack thereof), facial


expressions, make-up (or lack thereof), hair-do etc. There will be no interesting background or curious lighting patterns to add to the atmosphere, so do the best you can with what you’ve got. - High-key lighting is usually used to convey upbeat and jolly mood, and rightly so – it’s thoroughly nondramatic. You can use it to create very expressive and punchy pictures, as clean and beautiful or as lively and joyful as you want them to be. So, today we’ve learned how to make a high-key lighting setup the minimalist way – with nothing but a speedlight and a white interior. Congratulations, you have discovered a little secret of beauty photography: high-key images are not so hard to do! Now don’t miss a prime opportunity to enhance your portfolio with some sophisticated pictures; you know it doesn’t take much to shoot those – but your viewers don’t. This is time to impress them with your photographic prowess! Oleg Starko

There is nothing wrong with depicting a male model in soft high-key light.

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Publisher ProPortfolioClub.com © Zelbel Ltd. & Co.KG all rights reserved Editor Michael Zelbel Text Oleg Starko Photos / Video Michael Zelbel Jacques Rattaz Postproduction Gina Hernandez Graphic Design Renzy Memije Alex Zlatev

Cover Model: Styling: Photo: Campaign:

Coco Emily Wei Michael Zelbel Phottix Odin

Düsseldorf, Germany

Contact Edtitorial / Commercial / Advertising [email protected] http://www.GoodLightMag.com Disclaimer Some links in this magazine are afliate links. If you purchase a product after following these links, we will receive a small commission.

Good Light Magazine Issue 01

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